Column Level Lineage

Trace, track, and trust
your data & AI.

Automated, column-level lineage stitched across 100+ connectors — helping teams conduct root cause and impact analysis in minutes, make trusted decisions, and deliver context-aware AI that performs reliably in production.

Book a Demo →See Product Tour

“In just the first few months, Atlan had lineage across systems like our on-prem Oracle databases, BigQuery data warehouse on Google Cloud, and Looker for visualizations.”
Kiran Panja
Managing Director of Cloud Platforms & Engineering
“Questions about downstream impact used to take allocation of a lot of resources and at least four to six weeks, but [with Atlan] I solved that within 30 minutes, saying ‘If you’re changing the column name or adding an extra column, this is what it’s going to break or impact.”
Karthik Ramani
Global Head of Data Architecture
”We have Atlan as the metadata plane across our tech stack. We have one place to define the data, understand what it means, and where it comes from.”
Oliver Gomes
VP Analytics & Strategy

Item 1 of 3

End-to-End Lineage

See How Your Business, Data, and AI All Work Together. Instantly.

Automatically map every relationship across your data and AI estate — from business-level data products to column-level details — all stitched into one connected lineage graph.

Column Lineage For Data Engineers & Architects

Atlan auto-stitches column-level lineage across your stack so you can debug faster, design smarter, and trust every model, metric, and migration.

AI Lineage For ML Teams & AI Governance

Follow data, training sets, and models end-to-end for complete visibility into how your AI is trained, deployed, and making decisions.

Data Product & Domain Lineage For Business Teams

See how every metric and data product is built across domains so business teams understand context instantly.

Bring Your Own Lineage For Everything Else

Not everything in your stack comes with a native extractor — and that’s fine. Atlan lets you import lineage via CSV, build it visually, publish it via API, or stream it through OpenLineage.

Workflow Intelligence

Lineage Context that Meets Humans & AI Where They Work

Bring lineage into the tools, reviews, and automations your teams already use, so humans and AI agents get the right context exactly when they need it.

Quality Signals for Faster RCA

Atlan surfaces upstream errors and impacted assets directly in lineage so teams can pinpoint issues in minutes, not hours.

Proactive Impact Analysis in GitHub & GitLab

See the full downstream impact of dbt model changes inside your pull requests, giving every developer instant, context-rich code review.

Auto-Propagate Metadata Along Lineage

Tags, glossary terms, and descriptions automatically travel across lineage and sync bi-directionally with tools like Snowflake and Databricks.

AI Access via MCP

Give AI agents and automations direct access to lineage context through Atlan’s MCP Server so they can work smarter, safer, and with full awareness.

See Product Tour →

“With Google DataPlex, lineage only showed part of the story. Our business operates across many systems and we needed complete, enterprise wide lineage. Atlan’s platform was more intuitive, delivered on complex end-to-end lineage, and had a strong library of connectors. We also used OpenLineage for Spark jobs to tie operational lineage to our data platform.”

Zenul Pomal

Core Data Platform & Enterprise Architecture

18M+

Assets
Cataloged

1,300+

glossary terms
connected

100+

Active
Users

CME Group operates the world's largest derivatives marketplace, processing 30.2M contracts on average every day.

Watch Case Study →

Future-Ready Architecture

Built on the Metadata Lakehouse
for Infinite Scale & AI-Native Workflows

A massively scalable, open, and AI-ready architecture that keeps your lineage fast, interoperable, and future-proof as your data & AI estate evolves.

Designed for Large Estates

Built on JanusGraph and the Metadata Lakehouse, Atlan delivers fast, predictable lineage performance across millions of assets — even at 25–50M asset scale.

Query Lineage Like Data

Plug the Metadata Lakehouse into your analytical tools to find unused assets, deprecation candidates, and regulatory or migration edge cases programmatically.

Knowledge Graph

Atlan connects your semantic layer and data stack into a unified knowledge graph so every relationship, dependency, and definition is instantly understood.

Open Standards

Support for OpenLineage, event-driven ingestion, and rich APIs via Atlan’s App Framework ensures your lineage stays portable, interoperable, and ready for the future of your stack.

“Atlan scored highest for data lineage and impact analysis... Customer references praise the ease of use of the technology, and particularly the lineage and search capabilities.”

— 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Metadata Management Solutions

Read Report →

2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Metadata Management Solutions Read Report →

Explore Lineage with Atlan

The Ultimate Guide to Evaluating Data Lineage

A definitive guide with 19 must-ask questions to assess any lineage tool’s depth, breadth, accuracy, scalability, and real-world utility — so you know exactly what “good lineage” should look like before you buy.

Download Ebook →

Documentation: Lineage on Atlan

Dive into the full technical documentation for Atlan’s lineage capabilities — from column-level stitching to BI lineage, AI lineage, custom ingestion, OpenLineage support, and everything in between.

Read Documentation →

How CME Group & Deutsche Börse Map Their Data & AI Estate with Atlan

Learn how two of the world’s leading exchanges built end-to-end visibility across their data and AI landscape using Atlan lineage to standardize definitions, accelerate change, and govern at scale.

Watch recording →

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions: Lineage in Atlan

What is data & AI lineage and why does it matter?

Data & AI lineage shows how information moves, transforms, and connects across your entire ecosystem — from business products and metrics, to technical pipelines and joins, to operational dependencies, all the way to features, training datasets, and deployed AI models. It matters because every team needs a different slice of truth: business users want metric clarity, engineers need column-level detail, operators need dependency visibility, and AI teams need full model provenance. Atlan brings all of this together — business lineage, data lineage, operational lineage, and AI lineage — into one connected, accurate, easy-to-explore map of your data and AI estate.

How is Atlan’s lineage different from other lineage tools?

Atlan combines depth, breadth, accuracy, and usability in ways most lineage tools simply cannot. You get automated column-level lineage, business & domain lineage, and full AI lineage across 100+ connectors — all stitched together by automated SQL parsing and API connections. Under the hood, Atlan leverages the Metadata Lakehouse and JanusGraph, giving you fast, predictable performance even at 25–50M+ asset scale. Atlan is also designed for modern AI workflows: AI agents can natively access lineage context through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling safer and smarter automation. And because Atlan embraces open standards like OpenLineage and exposes rich APIs and SDKs through its App Framework, your lineage remains portable, extensible, and future-proof. This combination of deep detail, massive scale, AI-native access, and open interoperability is why enterprises consistently choose Atlan over legacy lineage tools.

Does Atlan support lineage for AI and ML models?

Yes — Atlan provides complete AI lineage from raw data to engineered features to training datasets to model versions and downstream applications. This helps teams validate inputs, understand model behavior, support audits, and run responsible AI practices like retraining workflows and risk reviews.

Can business users benefit from lineage, or is it only for engineers?

Business users benefit enormously. Atlan offers Data Product & Domain Lineage that shows how metrics, dashboards, and business entities connect across the organization — in a clean, intuitive interface designed for non-technical teams. This helps analysts and business owners understand where numbers come from, what they depend on, and what changes might affect them — all without needing engineering support.

What if my system isn't supported by a native connector?

No problem — Atlan offers multiple ways to bring in custom lineage: visual modeling with Lineage Builder, CSV imports, event-driven ingestion via OpenLineage, and Atlan’s App Framework offers full APIs and SDKs to publish lineage programmatically. This ensures you get complete coverage even for homegrown systems or long-tail tools.

Does Atlan support OpenLineage?

Yes — Atlan fully supports OpenLineage for event-driven lineage ingestion. This allows teams to bring in real pipeline execution details from orchestrators like Airflow, Spark, and dbt Cloud, ensuring lineage reflects what actually happened in production.

How does Atlan help with impact analysis?

Atlan automatically shows every downstream dashboard, job, model, or product affected by a change — and surfaces this context directly inside GitHub or GitLab pull requests. Developers get an immediate blast-radius view of proposed changes, enabling safer, more informed deployments.

How does Atlan help with root cause analysis?

When something breaks, Atlan highlights upstream failures, data quality issues, and dependency paths directly in the lineage graph. Teams can pinpoint the exact job, column, or transformation causing the issue within minutes — eliminating manual digging through logs or Slack threads.

Is Atlan’s lineage scalable for large enterprises?

Yes — Atlan is engineered to handle massive lineage graphs with millions of assets. Built on JanusGraph and powered by the Metadata Lakehouse, Atlan consistently delivers fast performance even at 25–50M+ asset scale, making it ideal for the world’s largest, most complex data estates.

Can AI agents use Atlan’s lineage?

Yes — through Atlan’s MCP Server, AI agents and automations can access lineage context to work safely and intelligently. This enables workflows like automated RCA, dependency-aware data transformations, proactive checks before deployments, and LLMs that understand exactly how data flows.

Does Atlan’s lineage support governance workflows like classification, tags, and glossary propagation?

Absolutely. Atlan automatically propagates tags, classifications, glossary terms, and descriptions along lineage and syncs them bi-directionally with tools like Snowflake and Databricks. This ensures governance stays consistent and accurate without repetitive manual updates or copying.

What teams typically use Atlan’s lineage?

Data engineers use it for debugging and safe deployments, AI/ML teams for full model lineage, analysts and business owners for metric clarity and self-service, and governance teams for audits, compliance, and policy enforcement. Each persona gets the lens they need to understand their part of the data and AI story.

The only platform that brings all the humans of data & AI together.